The Workshop on Local Democracy under the theme “How Can Local Governments Provide Space for Democratic Development and Protection of Human Rights?” aims to address emerging opportunities and challenges facing local government and cities in their efforts to provide space for democratic development and human rights promotion.

Sharing and interactive dialogue among speakers and particiapnts will be conducted against the global trends and processes related to local democracy such the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development known as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), specially goal no 11 – Make Cities and Human Settlement more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, UN HABITAT III (Ecuador, Oct. 2016) and UN Human Rights Council report on Local Government and Human Rights (A/HRC/30/49).

Several speakers from Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Moldova, Indonesia, Mongolia and South Korea will share their concrete experiences of promoting local democracy or governance and human rights in different contexts.

Guiding questions

1) How has your project or activity contributed to the promotion of democracy and human rights at the local level?

2) What are pressing challenges you have been facing?

3) What are the lessons learnt to share with other local democracy advocates?

4) How we can promote democracy and human rights at the local level through international networking and advocacy at the forthcoming international meetings (e.g. HABITAT-III) and mechanisms (e.g. SDGs)